One of the greatest tasks for any mother-to-be is deciding on a name for their little bundle of joy. Baby naming for some is a daunting task, full of fear, uncertainty, and “I-don’t-want-to-give-my-child-a-name-he-will-hate”-ness. For others, like me, baby naming is something they have been looking forward to for months, years, and even decades. Baby naming is my passion, I am such a baby name nerd. I LOVE names! Origin, etymology, trends, derivatives…love love love it. All of my dolls and pets had first and middle names, even my Cabbage Patch Kids, who came with names, had to be renamed because their names weren’t good enough for me (some of the flows were just like wth?). Of course, then, when it came time to think of names for our firstborn, I was in heaven.

I decided that I wanted him to have an undoubtedly masculine name, manly you know, one that honored family members, one that was traditional and classic and stands the test of time, one that wasn’t too common, yet one that was easily recognizable, and most importantly, one that everyone knows how to spell (can you tell that I live life as a Tonjia?). I love names so much that I couldn’t decide on 1 middle name, so oh let’s give him 2, oh how regal that would be and so we have: Benjamin Gregory William…perfection in my eyes.

Fast forward 3 years and young Benjamin Gregory William is in preschool and is learning how to write his entire name…WTH was I thinking?! Every day, we have the same conversation: “Mommy, my name is Benjamin Gregory right?…no, honey, don’t forget the William, its Benjamin Gregory William, OK?…OK, Mommy, Benjamin Gregory!”.

It doesn’t help that he is totally infatuated with letters and learning how to write them and he wants to write BENJAMIN himself on his little chalkboard all day. It’s enough to make me, Ms. “I might not choose the name Benjamin although I love it so much because I totally dislike the nickname BEN and if anyone calls him BEN I am going to flip”, the original anti-Ben herself say “Benjamin, honey, let’s write it like this…see…B-E-N…that’s it, we’re done, wow, you are such a great writer!” Of course, young Benjamin screamed “Mommy, THAT DOES NOT SAY BENJAMIN…I want it to SAY BENJAMINNNNNNN” and we spend 30 more minutes adding J-A-M-I-N. Fun times.

Although I still love his name as much as I did when I had my eureka moment 3 years ago, I must say that I am so happy that our 2nd child is Anna

Let’s hear from you: What was your baby naming process like? How did you decide on baby names? How do you feel about your name choice now?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Divas Den. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.